


Half a love never appealed to me

by thefrabjousday



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Fluff, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, I didn't tag major character death cuz they don't stay dead obv but..., I swear it's mostly soft and tender, M/M, Nightmares, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Serious Injuries, Slow Dancing, Tenderness, This fic is very self indulgent to be fair, aka my lifeblood, but like.... they're immortal so it's fine, its about the intimacy of small moments and the comfort in being close to someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26547124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrabjousday/pseuds/thefrabjousday
Summary: It’s been ten years, Andy’s hair has started to show streaks of grey, Quynh (mostly) no longer wakes halfway through each night screaming and spluttering as if her lungs are full of water, and Booker looks less haunted than he has in a century. Nile misses her mom and brother, but loves her new family in equal measure. Memories of zip ties and needles are far from Joe and Nicky’s minds, and when the thought of one day losing the other weighs too heavily in their minds they know to hold one another until the feeling passes. They’re a family again. They will be okay.—Four vignettes of The Old Guard members dancing with one another.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 26
Kudos: 134





	Half a love never appealed to me

**Author's Note:**

> It's about..... the casual intimacy of it all...

They are in Marseilles again, three years after their last visit to the city. Nile remembers the tense conversations from then, the serious tones interrupted only by the wind howling outside as they all sat in Booker’s tiny apartment—he’d looked small and lost even amidst the overcrowded room. When they’d told him he could come back, that they’d decided that time, even for an immortal, was too precious to waste, he’d looked like a collapsing star. Quynh had been the first one to reach out to him, to place her hand over Booker’s like a tether—fitting, as she’d been the tether between him and the rest of the group for the past six years. 

_He was the only thing that tied me to the world for 200 years, while I was drowning. He was what brought me back to any kind of sanity. And after… He helped me through the nightmares those first years._ She had told Nile once. 

They’d all been feeling the press of mortality a little more heavily in the months before their decision to reverse Booker’s sentence. Then Andy had broken her leg on a mission and they’d all known it was time. She was still in a cast when they sat around Booker’s living room and offered him a second chance. Really by then it was only Nicky who still hadn’t totally forgiven him; Nile had been surprised at first by the icy anger that Nicky harbored over Booker’s betrayal, seemingly at odds with his otherwise gentle personality. She’d asked Joe if Nicky had always been like this, and he’d laughed, told her yes, that Nicky’s kindness and trust and love ran wide and far for everyone he knew, stranger or closest of confidants, but once lost was near impossible to earn back. 

Now, though, they sit in a much larger apartment on the outskirts of the city. The setting sun reflects off the nearby buildings and a truly divine smell rises from the kitchen where Joe stirs something on the stovetop. Coldness no longer glints from Nicky’s eyes when he looks at Booker, and the two sit on the same couch, shouting at a football match on the TV. The salt tinged kiss of the Mediterranean’s water still sits upon Nile’s skin from where they had been swimming in the sea earlier in the day. They’d hiked through the Parc National des Calanques, Nile’s eyes wide at how beautiful the mountains and the water were, and Booker had shown them a hidden away little inlet, more difficult to get to than most tourists _or_ locals would put the effort into reaching. 

Nile lets her eyes drift shut, a smile on her face as the scene around her mingles with memories of the startlingly blue water from earlier in the day. She lets the sounds of her family wash over her, content in their gentle hubbub. The radio in the kitchen hums some soft tune, Joe’s voice pitching to meet the sweet notes. She hears Andromache laugh, light and carefree, and something in her chest clenches for a moment as she remembers nights like this with her family back in Chicago. 

The tune on the radio changes, and Joe makes a sharp noise before turning the volume up. Nile’s eyes flash open. There’s a quick clatter as he places the wooden spoon onto the cutting board and pads the few steps into the seating area, pulling Quynh off her perch on Andy’s armchair and into a quick twirl. Quynh laughs, her hair falling back off her shoulders as she follows Joe’s steps around the room. 

The song patters on as Joe and Quynh float around the room. Joe’s voice rises and falls with the near century old lyrics, 

_If it's love, there ain't no in between_  
_Why begin then cry, for something that might have been_  
_No, I'd rather, rather have nothing at all_

Andy laughs again, clapping her hands together, watching the two of them. The tightness loosens from Nile’s chest, allowing her to breathe fully again as she loses herself to the moment again. 

The pair finish with a dramatic dip, shockingly well executed for what had turned into a silly series of moves as the song had played on. At some point Booker’s voice had joined in with Joe’s, scratchy and deep but endearing. With a final flourish Joe returns Quynh to her original seat and she slides down onto Andy’s lap, the two sharing a lingering kiss. 

The air in the room feels warm and bright even as the sun’s final rays dip below the horizon. Joe exclaims quietly again, sweeping back through the room and towards the stove, brushing a kiss to Nicky’s cheek as he goes past. 

“Dinner’s ready!” Joe announces, and Nile rises from her chair to start grabbing plates and utensils. 

—

A few months later and they are in Quebec. Copley had sent them intel on a trafficking ring outside of Saguenay. It had been easy enough to take the ring down, get all of the victims out, and kill all of the traffickers. With the intel Booker managed to pull from the computers they had on site, Copley assured them they’d be able to take down the rest of the network in the region for good. 

The mission had gone off without a hitch, until of course it hadn’t. 

How they’d missed the charges Nicky has no idea. Booker and Quynh and Nile are already outside, making sure the newly freed hostages are alright and getting them loaded into the van they’d driven in with. He and Joe and Andy are making one final sweep of the building when suddenly he sees Joe’s eyes go wide, a panicked shout forming on his lips. 

Nicky only has a moment to react, wrapping his body around Andromache like a shield as Joe rushes back towards them to try and—

The world collapses around them, a searing pain tears along his back as a beam falls over him, knocking him to the side. Darkness and silence engulf him for several moments. As he gasps back to life, ears still ringing, he glances wildly around. He feels Andy shift from where she lies halfway underneath him, cocooned in a pocket of space where the ceiling had miraculously missed her, mostly hitting Nicky instead. She groans, coughs, and then rolls into a crouched position. 

“Joe?” She calls out, squinting into the sudden darkness. 

Nicky pulls himself out and turns frantically to where he’d last seen Joe, calling for him in equal parts Italian and Arabic. 

“There. He’s there, Nicky, look,” Andy grabs his arm, pointing to where she can see part of Joe’s unconscious form, before clutching at her own shoulder. 

“Boss—”

“Go, I’m fine. Just bruised. Maybe a little concussed.”

Nicky nods, already halfway to Joe’s prone form. 

It isn’t the most horrific death Nicky has ever seen Joe endure, but the stillness of his body, the lifelessness, is never easy to bear. 

Gently, ever so gently, Nicky runs his hand along Joe’s cheek, fingers moving upwards to gently stroke at Joe’s temple.

“Cuore mio, destati, destati. Ti prego, destati,” he whispers, running his other hand along Joe’s shoulder where it sticks out from under the debris. He pushes futilely at the rubble, “Yusuf.. ti prego.”

He can hear the others’ voices, Booker yelling alternately for Andy and him and Joe. 

“Here! We’re here.” Andy calls back, and a moment later Quynh’s slight form comes into view from between a gap in the debris. 

_They’d been lucky to be so close to the exit_ , Nicky thinks, turning back to Joe. Who is still not moving, still not breathing. Nicky’s stomach drops.

“No. No, no, no, no, no. Yusuf, no. Wake _up_ ,” Nicky shakes Joe, his panic growing. He feels a hand on his shoulder, barely registering it as Nile. Moments later Booker manages to shoulder his way into the ruined room, stopping to make sure Quynh can help Andy get out alright before carrying on to where Nicky is hovering over Joe’s still form. 

“—to get the debris off him. Nicky... _Nicolo_ , are you listening, we have to get the debris off him, it’s too heavy for him to—” Booker’s voice filters hazily through Nicky’s mind. He finds himself moving before the action fully registers in his mind, helping Nile and Booker lift the section of wall pinning Joe down. 

Joe comes to with a violent gasp, spluttering and coughing up blood before rolling and pressing his forearm to the floor in order to raise himself up. Nicky collapses, reaching out and pressing his forehead to Joe’s shoulder. 

“Nicky. Nicky I’m here, I’m here,” Joe says, weakly, “Andy, is she..?”

“She’s fine. She’ll be fine,” Nile responds. 

Joe groans, wheezing as his ribs readjust and his body heals from the crushing weight that had held him down for several long minutes. 

Booker motions to them, “we have to get out of here, the house is unstable.”

“Wh—what happened? What the fuck was that?” Joe grits out, accepting Nile’s outstretched hand. 

“They rigged the place, the bastards. Had it on a timer or something. One of them must have initiated it when we first breached,” she responds as they force their way back out of the house. 

They make it back to the van where Andy and Quynh are waiting for them. Andy immediately reaches for Joe, grasping the base of his neck and pulling their foreheads together. Joe nods as they pull back apart, both satisfied that the other is whole and in one piece. 

The drive back to the rendezvou point with the victims’ families is silent, those they’d freed from the house too in shock to speak, the team too shaken to say anything either. 

After, when Andy is bandaged up, checked over by a discreet doctor that Copley, ever pragmatic, had made sure was lined up should anything go south and Andy wind up injured. After she’s scanned and looked over and given the all clear, pronounced a lucky bastard by the doctor for the minimal injuries she’s sustained. When the team is finally able to head to their safehouse, hours and hours and hours later, and collapse on beds and couches and cots, Nicky finally exhales. 

“I thought I lost you,” he whispers into Joe’s freshly changed shirt. They’d showered and silently gone to their room and then just stood in the middle of it, reaching out and pulling each other close. “I thought. I thought you were gone.” 

“Never. Never, my heart. I could not leave you, not like that.”

“You know that’s not true. We don’t control when it is our time.”

“I know, hayati, I know. But I still believe it; I could not leave you, neither willingly nor unwillingly. You are the breath in my lungs and as long as your heart beats, so will mine.”

Nicky exhales, clutching Joe tighter as Joe’s hands come up to rest on Nicky’s shoulder blades. They stand that way, impossibly close, for several minutes, simply feeling each other’s heart beat and chest rise and fall. 

Eventually Joe begins to hum, something soft and ancient that only the two of them and the two women in the room next door could possibly remember. The melodic, aching tune barely fills the space between them but a shudder passes through Nicky as they begin to sway. It’s not dancing, not really, more like the gentle rock you would use on a child to put them to sleep. They lose themselves in Yusuf’s soft tenor and the gentle movement of their bodies until that terrible, centuries old fear loosens its vice like grip on their chests and they no longer feel like they are swaying with a ghost instead of a person. 

—

“No, you are _definitely_ misremembering, there is simply _no way_ that I would have butchered a waltz like that,” Booker pronounces from across the table. 

“Oh, but you _absolutely_ did. It was with that poor girl—oh what was her name… Princess… something? Duchess, maybe…” Andy groans, trying to remember the specifics of a particularly outlandish story, the wine clearly effecting her more than the others, whose metabolisms churn alcohol through their systems twice as fast. 

“First of all, I would never butcher a waltz. _Second_ of all, I would never dance with a princess. What do you take me for, a royalist?” Booker scoffs, affronted. 

“Hold on, hold on, I think Andromache is right,” Nicky chimes in, “it was the, uhh, English one, you know—”

Booker cuts him off, “ _English??_ NO. No way. The only thing worse than a royal, is an English royal. I would never fraternize with a royal, certainly not an English one.”

“Now hold on a minute,” Joe interjects, a mischievous smile in his eyes, “what about the Tzar’s cousin… What was his name? I’d call _that_ fraternizing.”

Booker groans, lightly going pink, “ _That_ was not my fault. That was because _you guys_ fucked up the distraction and _I_ had to improvise,” Booker gestures widely at the group. 

“Oh that certainly was _improvising_ alright—” Joe heckles. 

“No no nonono, but the _waltz_ , Book… the _waltz_ ,” Andy leans forward in her chair, pointing at Booker with intention. 

Booker groans, head tilting back to look at the ceiling. 

“Well, I’ve never seen you waltz, and you certainly strike me as having two left feet,” Nile says, far too innocently. 

Booker rises to the bait in the time it takes to turn his head to look at Nile, “You want to see me waltz? I’ll show you the damn waltz!” 

Laughter echoes around the room as Booker stands and pulls Nile up, starting up a three count under his breath. 

“Okay, okay! Maybe it wasn’t the waltz, then,” Andy calls out after a few minutes of this, “you can stop showing off!”

Nile laughs as Booker turns them so they can take a quick bow, Quynh starting a round of applause for the duo. 

—

Quynh wakes with a start, the sensation of water in her lungs and pressure heavy depths surrounding her abating as soon as she gasps back into consciousness. She immediately begins to count her breaths, slowing them, head heaved between her knees as she places her feet firmly on the hardwood floor to the side of the bed. 

“Quynh?” she hears Andromache call softly from the other side of the bed. 

Andromache shifts, pulling herself to a sitting position against the headboard but not moving any closer to Quynh until given confirmation that that is welcome. Quynh takes three more deep breaths, savoring the air going in and out of her lungs before she turns and looks towards Andromache, holding out a hand. Andy takes it, squeezing gently and reassuringly. 

They stay that way for a moment before Quynh inclines her head and draws Andromache to her side of the bed and then up until both of them are standing. She wraps her arms around Andy’s waist and rests her forehead against her chest. Andromache lays her hands gently at the small of Quynh’s back, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. 

The two of them float there for a moment, heart beats coming into sync once again. A light breeze drifts in through the open window, and with it the smell of oranges from the nearby orange grove. Distant memories of eons long since past enter their minds, but they are pushed away for the here and now. 

“It’s been a while since you’ve had a nightmare,” Andy eventually remarks. 

“Yeah.” 

“Do you need anything?”

“Just this.”

Andromache’s eyes drift shut as Quynh pulls closer, tucking herself under Andy’s chin. There’s a beat, and then they both start to move, the moonlight spilling across the floor as the same memory of the same song comes into their minds, a lullabye from Quynhs youth that she once taught Andromache. Their feet shift and their hips sway, toes skimming across the floorboards as their hands each tighten imperceptibly to draw the other one minutely nearer. 

They drift across the room until they come under the window and the moon’s direct light, Quynh pulling back just enough to look at Andromache. The night’s glow catches in the silver that now streaks Andromache’s hair. 

“I like these,” Quynh says in a language ancient enough that neither of them remembers the last time it was spoken by anyone aside from them. Her hand comes up to brush against the grey in Andromache’s hair. 

Andy smiles and leans into the touch. 

“And these,” Quynh continues, letting her hand drift down to the smile lines creasing Andy’s face, her words still soft and impossibly old. 

The two drift on in the room, whispering of a love so old that it aches in every fibre of their being. Eventually they both sigh, sleep once again settling in their bones, and they return to bed.

**Author's Note:**

> The song on the radio (and also where I got the title from) is Frank Sinatra's [All Or Nothing At All](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAN_jLnD_Q8)
> 
> Translations:  
> Cuore mio, destati, destati. Ti prego, destati. - My heart, wake up, wake up. Please wake up.  
> Yusuf, Ti prego. - Yusuf, please.
> 
> —
> 
> Thanks for reading! Find me on Tumblr over at [toosmallortootall](http://www.toosmallortootall.tumblr.com)


End file.
